‘Captain Wentworth should be allowed some credit for the self-command with which he attended to her large fat sighings over the destiny of a son, whom alive nobody had cared for’ (Persuasion, 1817).

‘Mrs. Hall of Sherbourn was brought to bed yesterday of a dead child, some weeks before she expected, oweing to a fright.—I suppose she happened unawares to look at her husband’ (Letter to Cassandra, 1798)

‘And pictures of perfection, as you know, make me sick and wicked’ (Letter to Fanny Knight, 1817).